Scott Eastwood and Colin Hanks, sons of Hollywood legends Clint Eastwood and Tom Hanks, team up in the new World War 2 action thriller 'Lucky Strike.' The film, set during the Battle of the Bulge, is based on a harrowing true story and will be available to stream in the UK digitally on demand from August 10.
Based on a Veteran's Interview
Screenwriter Marc Frydman based the script on an interview with a Battle of the Bulge veteran he conducted when he was 16, rewriting it several times over the last 50 years. The film is set in 1944 during the deadliest single battle for the US Army, with at least 81,000 casualties. During five weeks of fighting in the bitter cold of the Ardennes, American troops were stranded behind enemy lines with communications breaking down due to the harsh winter.
Plot and Influences
Eastwood stars as fictional John Castle, a wounded lone survivor after his unit is slaughtered by a Nazi ambush. With only a backpack containing a Motorola SCR-300 radio and a pack of Lucky Strike cigarettes, he attempts a 20-mile trek through the freezing Ardennes forest, evading Panzer squads and SS patrols. Directed by Rod Davis Lurie, who previously worked with Eastwood on 2019's 'The Outpost,' the film was influenced by classics like 'The Guns of Navarone,' 'Where Eagles Dare,' 'Von Ryan's Express,' and 'The Great Escape.'
